The Condor88:404-406 0 The CooperOrnithological Society 1986 BOOK REVIEWS MARCY F. LAWTON, EDITOR Neotropical ornithology.-P. A. Buckley, Mercedes S. those of Vuilleumier, Snow and Fjeldsa, illustrates the Foster, EugeneS. Morton, Robert S. Ridgely, and Francine extent to which the distributions of neotropical birds are G. Buckley [eds.]. 1985. Ornithological Monographs No. known and suggeststhat avian biogeographywill continue 36, American Ornithologists Union. 1,036 p. $70.00. to influenceour understandingof evolutionary pattern and In 1981, the editors of Neotrooical Ornitholom beaan processin the tropics. to assemble in one volume a display of cont&por&y The monograph ends with an overview of the papers researchon the richest avifauna in the world. The result and of the field of neotropical ornithology by Parkes.Most is a remarkable commemoration of the late Eugene Ei- readerswill share his enthuasiam for this impressive col- senmann, to whom the monograph is dedicated. It is a lection of papers. Many, however, will take issuewith his credit to the editors and a tribute to the ways in which view of the field and its future. neotropical ornithology has matured since the pioneering Parkesasserts that there are “three basic and successive works of Frank Chapman and Robert Ridgway. stagesof knowledge of birds that must precede all other The volume is more comprehensivethan the other re- aspectsof the study of ornithology,” namely, inventory, cent major work on neotropicalornithology, Migrant Birds classificationand descriptivezoology. These are important in the Neotropics(Keast and Morton [eds.] 1980), with stagesin ornithology, and in this volume Bock, Braun and which it overlaps only slightly in authorship and hardly Parker, Lanyon, and Sibley and Ahlquist present them at all in content. Appropriately, each of the 6 1 chaptersis with particularelegance and rigor. However, in the absence prefaced with English and Spanish abstracts, and many of extensiveknowledge about systematicsor speciescom- contain extensive tables and appendicesof original data. position in different habitats, other approachescan yield The geographicalrepresentation of study sites and au- information of general significance. thors reflects the editors’ successfulefforts to achieve a Parkes, like Eisenmann, is critical of “north temperate range of viewpoints on neotropical ornithology. Most theoreticistslike Lack” and the “hit-and-run observers” countriesof the Caribbeanand Central and South America of the ‘60s and ‘70s and applaudsthe exclusion from the are covered, although with an irony familiar to Latin volume of “these formerly fashionable superficialpapers, America, the ornithologicalriches tend to be concentrated with more mathematicsthan data.” The criticism is clearly in the hands of a few. One in seven studies focuses on aimed at Robert MacArthur and other ecologistswho made Peru, which representsonly one of 20 countriesin Central forays to the Neotropics to muster data to answer the Big and South America. Nine of the papers issue from just Questionsof thosedecades-Why are there so many species one of the volume’s 43 academic addresses(the omitho- in the tropics?Why do tropical birds have smaller clutch logical oligarchy is Louisiana State University). sizes than their temperate zone counterparts?What roles The authors and editors make up an All-Star team of do competition and predation play in structuring com- neotropicalornithologists. Several literally wrote the book munities? on neotropical birds, having published field guides to the A number of the present papers, in fact, are vulnerable avifauna of different countries: Ffrench for Trinidad and to the same “hit-and-run” criticism, for they are based on Tobago, Phelps for Venezuela, Ridgely for Panama, and observations(by qualified observers,admittedly) gathered (soon to appear) Hilty for Colombia and Stiles for Costa during brief expeditions; fewer than half of the studies Rica. Others, like Garrido, Sick, Skutch, and Snow, have could be described as “long-term.” None could be criti- contributed to the ornithological literature of the Neo- cized for being too theoretical or mathematical, although tropics for over a quarter of a century. some could be criticized for not being enough so. Some of the most interesting and thorough papers are A disconcerting fact, which may reflect the status of written by younger investigatorsreporting details of their neotropical ornithology as much as NeotropicalOrnithol- dissertationresearch. Willard ’s comparative feeding ecol- ogy, is that not one of the 61 studies in this volume is ogy of 20 tropical fish-eating birds and Robinson’s study principally experimental in approach (Moermond and of nest pirates and egg and nestling predators of the co- Denslow’s superbreview paper refersto their experimental lonially breedingYellow-rumped Cacique are outstanding work on fruit selection by birds and five other papers examples. mention experiments conducted). Few of the papers test The editors deliberately avoided removing overlap be- or even present hypotheses. tween papers. In one instance this results in the reader The tradition of descriptive, correlational studies may being subjectedin successivepapers to the same lengthy be due to the historical predominanceof North Americans quotation from H. W. Bates.More importantly, the over- versus more experimentally inclined Europeans in neo- lap between papersserves the same purposeas replication tropical ornithological research, or simply the lure most in experimental design. It allows an assessmentof varia- of us ornithologistsfeel for just identifying and watching tion between sites,years and researchers.Independent and birds. Yet this emphasizeseven more strongly that neo- sometimesopposing views are presentedon the same top- tropical ornithology can only profit by a redistribution of ics. intellectualwealth and an exposureto the perspectivesand For example, Munn and Powell draw on their distinct methods of academic trespasserslike mathematical mod- experiencesto describethe behavior of mixed speciesflocks elers,plant ecologists,and limnologists-even if they can’t in the neotropics. Powell’s paper provides an in-depth identify dendrocolaptidsby their alarm calls. Stile’s long- review of the literature on interspecificforaging flocks and term study of hummingbirds and their food plants dem- demonstratesthat the integrity and behavior of flocks de- onstratesthe indispensability of a broad biological back- pends upon season,site, and the diet of the component ground, driving home the point that we need more, not species. less, cross-fertilization between fields of biology. Haffer and Cracraft discussthe biogeographyof South Birds are unquestionablybetter known biologicallythan American birds, attributing the explosive adaptive radia- any other group of organismsin the neotropics. By build- tions of neotropical birds chiefly to divergence in forest ing on the wealth of information about their taxonomy, refugia during the Pleistocene (Haffer) versus earlier vi- geographical distributions, evolutionary relationships, carianceevents (Cracraft). This pair of papers, along with population dynamics, and natural history, much of which [4041 BOOK REVIEWS 405 is admirably exhibited in this volume, ornithology seems EndocrineSystem and the Environment is an important poised for more discoveries of major biological signifi- volume. cance.-NATHANIELT. WHEELWRIGHT,Dept. ofBi- The Endocrine System and the Environment grew out ology, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME 040 11. of an international symposiumheld in India, in 1983, and attended by most of the major figuresin the nascentfield of environmental endocrinology. The volume, which is The Darwinian heritage.-David Kohn [ed.]. 1985. largely devoted to problems related to thyroid function, Princeton Universitv Press. Princeton. NJ. 1.138 v. is dedicated to J. P. Thapliyal, in honor of his seminal It is extraordinary how Darwin’s popularity hasgrown work with thyroxine and gonadal refractory periods in since 1959 when the jubilee ofthe publication ofthe Origin birds and reptiles. of Specieswas celebrated.At that time, several historians Many of the papers present new information and in- questionedthe validity of Darwin’s work and the quality triguing insights into the qualitatively different ways in ofhis mind, to suchan extent that H. J. Muller was moved which the endocrine systemmay respond to environmen- to exclaim “One hundred years without Darwin are tal changes.However, the volume is seriouslyflawed be- enough.” Twenty-three yearslater, at the centenaryofDar- cause it lacks conceptual cohesion and because most of win’s death (1982), almost a dozen symposia and me- the contributions fail to discussthe evolutionary or eco- morials were held, with all the participantsagreeing in the logical significanceof the observed interactions between conclusionthat Darwin’s theories are correct in all major organismand environment. aspectsand that Darwin clearly had been a genius of the For instance, several papers present new information first order. The most important and most comprehensive on the effect of the physical environment on thyroid func- of all the recent symposium volumes is the one edited by tion. Leloup and de Luze report on the effectsof temper- D. Kohn, with contributions by 30 authors, each a spe- ature and salinity on thyroid function in eels. They find cialist in some aspect of Darwinian scholarship. that increasingeither temperature or salinity leads to in- Owing